Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrode substrate and touch panel, more specifically, to an electrode substrate and touch panel, which has excellent conductive and optical properties.
Description of the Related Arts
A touch panel is installed on a display surface of an image display unit such as an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) device, an FED (Field Emission Display) device, a PDP (Plasma Display Panel) and an ELD (Electro Luminescence Device), and is a device which is configured such that the user inputs predetermined information in a computer using the touch panel while showing the image display unit. Recently, the touch panel has been widely used in communication terminals such as a smart phone or a touch phone for which touch commands are necessarily required.
In general, a transparent conductive component used in a display area of a touch panel has been produced by a deposition process for depositing an ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) on a transparent glass or film.
More specifically, in the conventional touch panel, the ITO was used as a transparent electrode, and a low-resistance metal wiring electrode and an ITO transparent electrode pattern were formed by repeating a photolithography process several times.
However, due to the recent short supply of indium, which is a main material of the ITO, it has been expected that a production cost will increase from now on. Also, a flexible display device having flexibility has been widely recognized as a leading product in future markets, but the ITO, which has been widely used, lacks flexibility, so it is problematic that the ITO is not appropriate for the flexible display device.
In a way, researches for a method of implementing the display device using an Ag ink printing method for replacing the ITO electrode and reducing the production cost have been carried out. However, due to the securing of penetrability and electric resistance, the method is problematic.